Get all 12 ISWHAT?! releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of What Happened To Me, iMaintain & LIVE at Joker's Pub, Big Appetite, Things That Go Bump in the Dark, Security, Archie Shepp w/ ISWHAT?! LIVE in Milan, Italy, iMaintain Jay Reynolds mix, The Good Fight live in Switzerland, and 4 more.
1. |
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iMaintain
(Chorus)
I maintain, that the main thing
Is to get the meaning of the first thing
4x
Better get your understandin’
(Verse 1)
If you got info but not truth
It’s like a big plate with no food
And it’s hard to concentrate on the truth
When you only meditate with them fools
You can spend all day with Glenn Gould
And be clueless of the skills that he used
You can hear the magic of the Duke
And never really get the groove
(Chorus)
(Verse)
Some try to rock with no blues
Best give it up no use
From the fruit came the juice
Like evidence came from the proof
Some find shelter with no roof
Like I get free but I’m not loose
And what’s the use of going through pain
If there ain’t meaning, no point to the thing
So ….
(Chorus)
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2. |
Twice the First Mind
03:07
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Twice the First Mind
There was never no bad time
For us to have one mind
But we better do this time
Cause our ass is on the line
All we passed along the way
Lonely nights and crowded days
comfort taken joy in knowing
confidence is never broken
we with pride remain this way
when they claim to own our time
the skin you’re in your state of mind
know that, I am yours and you are mine
There is nothing more Divine,
No option to divide
I’m grateful that you’re alive
and stayed by my side
There was never no bad time
For us to have one mind
But we better do this time
Cause our ass is on the line
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3. |
Torture
03:14
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Torture
It’s torturous the way we skip around the rhythm
Make war with us if you trippin like we kidding
It's more of us than you peeping with your vision
Deny it or believe it
We connected, no defeating
Silently win
Violently grin
sock it to ya soul
through your tissue and skin
yeh maybe you the one thats housing us
but show me how you eaten without us
freaking out the circus like a cat that found out
you a square in here, and this our roundhouse
might look strange like the freak show announced
But we got no shame and we ain't gone kowtow
Permanent powwow never leaving the meeting
Connected at root so the leaves fleek and
skin so tuff it’s joining stuff
scaring you to death cause you don’t dig it enough
literate legitimately joined by ligaments
but the strangest thing remains your ignorance
can’t put it in the pass tense
it has no absence
it’s right here with us oozing like an abscess
It’s torturous the way we skip around the rhythm
Make war with us if you trippin like we kidding
It's more of us than you peeping with your vision
Deny it or believe it
We connected, no defeating
My offspring fly
Cause they talking about us
Double elevation
Building stories around us
may be hoping
that they joking
like a token
surrender
but they twist it all together
Put ya soul in a blender
like “they did dat ??
how they live like that ??”
see the hate so real
and make love combat
doing that
torture tango
psycho logical
checking all the baggage
and reaching beyond it
If they can defy convention
then i can too
look at me,
look at you
look at all of us
ancestors got our back if we just
wake us up
wake em up
they still swinging
the blue remains in everything they singing
a million variations on Afroblue
vibrating plantations liberated and true
either you loving the connection
or it’s torturing you
It’s torturous the way we skip around the rhythm
Make war with us if you trippin like we kidding
It's more of us than you peeping with your vision
Deny it or believe it
We connected, no defeating
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4. |
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Dig
You gotta dig in the mud
Find the rock with the gleam on it
Get understanding and learn not to lean on it
You gotta hunt it, yearn like the fiend want it
Nati boys on the block they still on it
It's called salvation for a reason fools
Cause it saves the savage and we need it fools
Get out the box in book
Retrieve your tools
I'm just saving breath for the choking people
Put to death by the dripping needle
That can't see we the chosen people
But all of us them chosen people
do what you gotta to
to get what you need to get
do what you gotta to do
to get what you need to get
do what you gotta to
to get what you need to get
do what you gotta to do
to get what you need to get
ya dig
You gotsta dig through the dirt
and find the batch with the scratch in it
et underneath and learn how to scrap wit it
You got grab it
Make the good life a habit
Reproduce your dough
Like a bunch of wild rabbits
and put your credit down
if your crew ain't down
Can't make your plate great with a bunch of wild clowns
Lions get loose they make the ring right
All free by noon eating good tonight
All free by noon eating good tonight
do what you gotta to
to get what you need to get
do what you gotta to do
to get what you need to get
do what you gotta to
to get what you need to get
do what you gotta to do
to get what you need to get
ya dig
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5. |
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I want the homestead
I need the homestead
I want the home instead
these streets is dead
from the trailer parks to the projects
from the settlements to the boat decks
this is real poems for the stressed homes
and the latch keyed, everybody gone
from the, from the trailer parks to the projects
from the settlements to the boat decks
this is real poems for the stressed homes
and the latch keyed, everybody gone
there was a quiet place waitin for the weary soul
for the early born and the nearly old
clear and shelter from the gun clap and head tricks
from back break and the mean stick
we bought the noise in through fussy box
we let the glamour sin, the glass crib throwing rocks
quiet rushed away as we rush away
bringing stale baggage in from a past day
and now the homes look like the streets
dis funk shun we climb from underneath
from the trailer parks to the projects
from the settlments to apartments
these is fresh poems for the wrecked homes
and the latch keyed, everybody gone
did you find it on the block searchin a dirty ride
escaping harsh judgement that won't crush your pride
or was it on the court bounce'n the rock to score
once in doors you rejected no more
needing brothers cause my sisters is nice
but the need to belong is crippling vice
and the more you get away from yourself
the less you getting out of yourself
so you can try to work it out on your own
but half the home less will send you home
from the trailer parks to the projects
to the park benches where they get respect
these is lines for wise ones
that make the running understand from where they come
the pilgram and ronin is same
on a Haj trying to move with the change
walking steady being washed by the rain
smiling ahead understand the theme
was the meaning only real in the dream
or is life the nightmare that it seems
and they tell it from difficult place
its theirs etched deep in the face
when you get the understanding that they givin to you
you make the home they had once again brand new
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ISWHAT?! Cincinnati, Ohio
ISWHAT?! is a long standing, eternal cypher of hiphop, headed by Napoleon Maddox. Since 1996, ISWHAT?!, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, is comprised of a international family of like-minded musicians and artists. This global musical concept allows ISWHAT?! to perform in many different configurations. Recently ISWHAT?! is touring the world with "Twice the First Time, Stories of Millie-Christine McKoy". ... more
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